


Heard It Here First

by Omorka



Category: Sneakers (1992)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-22
Updated: 2010-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-07 11:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omorka/pseuds/Omorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mother and Whistler guide Carl through another security test that goes-  almost - as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heard It Here First

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the LJ Small Fandom Fest, Round Six. Intended to happen about six months before the events of the movie.

"Huh," said Carl, in that tone that was midway between oh-crap-what-do-I-do-now-guys and well-that's-sort-of-weird. Whistler and Mother both sat up in their chairs; Mother turned his headset back on.

"You might want to elucidate on that 'huh,' there, Carl," Mother responded, eyes on the hacked closed-circuit video feed for the power utility they were attempting to break into. In the background of one of the rotating views, a slim, shadowy figure walked by the front gate, an umbrella tucked under one arm.

"The wires here don't look right," Carl answered through the lightly crackling connection. "More to the point, there are too many of them. Hold on a moment and let me trace a couple of things."

"Check for extra connections," Whistler suggested.

Mother nodded, then remembered that neither of them could see him at the moment. "The system looked pretty simple on the original blueprints, but the building's had two additions since then. If they ran the closed-circuit lines in parallel - "

"That's exactly what they did," Carl interrupted. "They don't even meet. There are at least three different surveillance circuits." There was a pause, as if he were re-checking his own work. "And your feed is only one of them."

"Uh-oh," Mother muttered, fingers rolling at a cigarette he wasn't holding.

Whistler found the mike with one hand and leaned into it. "Can you tell what areas they cover?"

"Not from here. Hold on." Rubber-soled boots rang softly on metal; something scuffed against brick, or maybe cinderblock. "Yeah, okay. I think Mother was right about the two additions having their own lines, and they all feed into the main lobby from down here." Crease had spotted the exterior access to the basement sump pump room during their first, fast look at the building; getting Carl in there in his maintenance-guy outfit had been a snap - there were no exterior cameras between the north corner of the building and that frosted window by the fire escape. Technically, they'd already done enough to get paid, since Carl had planted a paint bomb in their heating ducts. Getting into the main offices would net them another thousand, though, and money was tight enough they needed it to keep the lights on through the end of next month. Word-of-mouth advertising wouldn't hurt, either.

"Can we proceed with our original plan without encountering surveillance from the other two systems, or do we need to make fake feeds for them, too?" Whistler's voice was calmer than Mother's, although the idea of backing away and trying this again another night wasn't exactly appealing to him, either.

Carl was silent for the better part of five minutes. "I think we're good, but I'm not quite sure. Uh, it looks like this feed - sorry, the cables on the right - actually carry the camera signals from both annexes. This one," and there was a pause as he touched something, "looks like it feeds from just the third floor of the main building. Bish isn't going up there, is he?"

"We weren't planning on it," Mother said slowly as Crease opened the front door of the van, climbed in, and set his umbrella down on the floor.

"What's the situation?" Crease barked. Getting from the front seat into the control area was awkward, even for someone as thin as he was; there just wasn't a way to do it gracefully. He untangled his feet and slid into the space next to Whistler at the main panel.

"Carl hit a minor snag - there are three CCTV feeds, not just one," answered Whistler. "Fortunately, he thinks we can avoid the two extras."

"Where do they lead?" Crease wasn't about to take Whistler's word on it.

Carl's voice crackled back, "One leads to the two additions to the building. Since Bishop isn't using any of those entrances, I don't think we need to worry about it."

"No, probably not," Crease agreed.

"We wouldn't have to worry about the security cameras if we could turn invisible," Mother mused out loud.

"If you start talking about the Philadelphia Experiment again, I will throw you out of this van," Crease replied, matter-of-factly.

"Oh, no," Mother answered cheerfully, "the invisibility rationale was only a cover-up after the fact. Project Rainbow wasn't ever about just bending light - it was about bending time and space, too." He grinned as he took a sip from an open can of soda. "Not that that wouldn't be helpful for us, too; if we could teleport - "

"Hey, there are only four cables in the third bundle," Carl broke in before Crease could start shouting. "What if there's something really valuable up there?"

"Does it matter? We're not here to actually, um, steal anything," Whistler reminded him.

"But it might be worth a bonus if we have evidence we _could_ have stolen it," Mother pointed out.

"Okay, guys, how's it going?" Bishop's voice rang out from the other radio.

Mother set the soda down hastily. "Doing good. Carl, you patched the main feed yet?"

"Got it." There were the sounds of alligator clips being placed, then a cable being cut. "Their main CC circuit is now showing a recording of the past twenty minutes."

"Main?" Bishop sounded vaguely concerned.

"There are two secondary circuits. One leads to the later additions to the building; we don't know where the second one goes, but it's not on your entry path," Crease filled in.

"Huh." Several keys jingled as Bishop tried each of them in the back door's lock in turn. "Carl, you still on-site?"

"Yup. Whatcha need?"

"See if you can trace the mystery circuit. Might be a little extra in it for us." The door creaked open.

"Sure." Carl's boots made muffled clangs as he climbed up the ladder again. The main stairway from the basement to the main lobby would take him too close to the security guard, but there was a maintenance elevator shaft just to his left.

A few minutes later he checked in again. "Guys, I'm on the second floor and I've found another access point. That circuit doesn't go through the main lobby at all; it goes straight from the third floor to the basement. Man, none of the custodians lock the maintenance closets here."

"Would it matter?" Whistler listened to the hum of several different fans in the background. "You could pick the locks anyway."

"With a credit card." Carl blew a stray hair back out of his face. "Mother, could you look on the blueprints again and tell me what's in the center of the third floor?"

The papers rattled and crinkled as Mother rolled them back out. "Conference room, some middle manager's office, another conference room, and an executive washroom, it looks like."

Crease leaned over. "I thought the boss's office was on the fourth floor."

"It is." Mother's finger slid across the paper. "Maybe it's just a managerial staff washroom?"

"Doesn't have the plumbing," murmured Carl. His voice echoed in a stairway.

"You sure?" Mother's voice was hesitant.

"Yeah." A door swished open. "Okay, I'm on three. I'm heading down there." His footsteps sounded, quiet but regular, as he snuck down the hallway.

A second sound, equally regular but slightly faster, joined his feet. Almost like a heartbeat, a constant rhythm.

"Okay, the four rooms for that feed should be the block in front of me," Carl whispered. A second sound joined the heartbeat rhythm, something like the cooing of a pigeon - not possible this deep in the building, was it?

"The sign says this is a conference room," Carl told them.

"Northwest corner?" Mother asked. Carl made an affirmative noise. The background rhythm sped up slightly, and the cooing rose in pitch.

Whistler froze, then snorted, then guffawed. He clapped a hand to his mouth, but it hardly damped his laughter.

Mother turned around and stared at him. Crease looked back and forth between the two of them and the speakers. Finally, Carl whined "what's so funny?" which sent Whistler into another fit of chuckling.

Between bouts, he wheezed out, "Carl, put your ear to the wall and listen."

There was a scuffing noise, then a pause, then Carl's high-pitched giggle, quickly stifled. The noise stopped, and the cooing dropped into a question, although the words were indistinct. Carl scuttled across the floor, and a door closed.

"You back in the closet?" Whistler asked, then started laughing again.

"Hoo, yeah." Carl pressed his ear to the door. "I think they heard me, but I'm guessing they're too, uh, distracted . . . "

"Who's too distracted by what?" Crease demanded.

Mother's eyes suddenly grew wide. "Carl, patch it through."

Carl muffled another squeak, and another pair of alligator clips snapped shut. Mother crowded the monitor. "Oh, holy crap," he murmured.

"What?" Crease growled.

"Isn't that one of the more advanced positions from the Kama Sutra?" Mother whispered, half in awe. Crease shouldered him out of the way and goggled.

\---

"So, in short: your rent-a-cops aren't paying attention to your expensive closed-circuit setups, your keys are easily obtainable from any custodial employee, your external maintenance entrances aren't secured, and you probably ought to consider installing an alarm system that can't be turned off by flipping its circuit breaker." Bishop handed over the folder; this one had been too easy, really. Not much of a challenge for him or his team.

"We'll take that into consideration." The regional VP scowled at the building manager, who shrank into his chair.

"Oh, and one other thing." Martin held up a videotape. "There's a closed-circuit feed that doesn't seem to go back to the main security desk. In fact, it watches three rooms, sends the signal down to the basement, and then back up to a fourth one on the same floor. Wacky little set-up, really. Whose idea was that?"

One of the guys with a nice suit, cheap tie, and too much hair gel cringed slightly. The building manager frowned. "Which rooms?"

"Four-twelve through four-fifteen." One of the assistant managers sat bolt upright.

"That's not . . . " The building manager trailed off. "Is that a recording of the security cameras for those rooms?"

"Yup. From about eleven p.m. last night. No sound, but black-and white visual feed. Very artistic, really." Bishop managed not to smile two hard as the two middle-management suck-ups writhed in their chairs. "Might want to take a look, especially if you're concerned about unauthorized building access after hours." He handed the building manager the tape.

"Thank you, Mr. Bishop. Pat in accounts receivable has your check," the little balding man said, standing to shake his hand. "Thanks for making the California electrical utility system safer."

"Any time," Martin said, releasing his grip and heading for the door. The tape had been amusing, in its way, but he was sort of glad to be rid of it - it made his hands feel like they were sweating.

The check, when he got back down to the first floor, was five hundred more than they'd agreed on and had fresh ink. He grinned; they'd made fast work of that. He winked at a secretary with a familiar hairdo; he'd only seen it from the back, in grainy monochrome, but that was enough in a building this small.

He climbed into the van. Crease was still in the driver's seat. "What did they have to say?"

"Not much. But we did get an extra tip, so I'm guessing they watched it." He leaned back. "Good work, Carl."

"Whistler figured it out before I did, and I was there," Carl pointed out, his ears red.

"What can I say; the rhythm we all came from is - distinctive." Whistler smirked.

"So how does a celebratory thin-crust pizza sound?" Bishop asked the crew.

"Crunchy," Whistler responded, and grinned again as Carl and Mother groaned and threw empty coffee cups in appreciation.


End file.
